


Halves

by vensre



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Merlin Slash Awards Nominee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-16
Updated: 2009-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vensre/pseuds/vensre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The coin metaphor goes literal.</p><p>Written for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/magog_83">magog_83</a>'s prompt: <i>An Ealdor tradition.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Halves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magog_83](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magog_83/gifts).



> Many thanks to [themadlurker](http://themadlurker.livejournal.com/) for the confidence-boosting betawork. Thanks also to [Sally](http://magog-83.livejournal.com/), my alpha reader and the reason this story exists at all. ♥
> 
> I like to think this is the same Merlin and Arthur from [Dawning](http://archiveofourown.org/works/14852), some years down the road, although the two stories aren't really related.
> 
> Also posted [at merlinxarthur](http://community.livejournal.com/merlinxarthur/1912162.html) on livejournal.

It was too early for this, although it would have been trying at any hour; Merlin had dithered for a while after laying out Arthur's breakfast, then burst into a twisty, stammering monologue that would have embarrassed even Guinevere, current champion of oddly appealing awkwardness. After a few minutes Arthur gave up on pretending to draw meaning from any of it and said, "All right, just shut up."

Merlin fell silent and looked at Arthur plaintively.

"None of what you just said was the least bit coherent," Arthur informed him. "Now, what it is you're looking for?"

"Uh," Merlin said, eyes huge, "Well." Arthur raised his eyebrows. Merlin sighed and fished in his pocket, coming up with what looked like half of a largish coin. "It looks just like this."

"Ah." Arthur turned and went to his chest-of-drawers, removing the flat, hinged box that housed the collection of stray objects he couldn't bring himself to discard: a lump of metal slag with a colourful sheen, a painted porcelain knob from a cabinet, two dragon scales, a bell, a star-shaped stone, and a little heap of other trinkets. He'd had to hide them well when he was younger, but now nobody rifled through his things or challenged his right to keep useless objects. The newest addition was a piece of a broken coin. "I should have realised it was yours. No one else comes into the bedchamber." It certainly explained why Merlin had appeared to be cleaning in all the corners the day before.

"Suppose it fell out of my pocket." The edges of Merlin's ears pinkened as Arthur removed the coin from the box and held it up to the light.

"Why do you have these, anyway?" Arthur was intrigued by a little daydream of Merlin keeping his own little stash of treasures, somewhere secret. He sat again, dropping the coin piece onto the corner of the table between them as Merlin slumped into his usual chair.

"I, um. That is..."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "They're important, then?"

"Uh," Merlin said again. "Well."

"Hm. How did you break it?"

"I had it done," Merlin hedged, then smiled a little. Arthur supposed he might have known Merlin's peculiar gifts were involved.

"What for?"

"Something they did in Ealdor."

Arthur leaned one elbow on the table and his chin on his hand with a pointed glare at Merlin, who laughed nervously.

"It's just a tradition. Don't know if they do it here, but I haven't seen it at all. Nobody but the richest had, you know, rings, around where I lived. Instead they broke a coin and the wife and husband would each keep half, kind of symbolising... yeah."

"That together they were whole?" Arthur mused, and Merlin jerked a little in surprise. "Oh," Arthur said, suddenly adrift. "Ah, oh hell. Merlin, did you want to marry someone? I can... You don't have to be _here_ if there's someone you—"

"No! _God_," Merlin said, frustrated, dragging his chair closer and reaching for Arthur, to tug him close, off-balance, and kiss him insistently. Arthur kissed back, puzzled but attentive, still reeling a bit as he waited for Merlin to explain. Merlin drew back and sighed shortly, shaking his head. "Are you stupid or something?" he muttered, and Arthur twigged.

"It's me," he said, hearing the awe ill-disguised in his voice. "You want to give it to me."

Merlin nodded once. His face was calm but weirdly resigned. "You don't have to, either," he said, reaching for the token where it was lying on the table.

Arthur clapped a hand over it before Merlin's was halfway there. They stared at each other. "I want it," Arthur said after a moment, and Merlin stared some more, smiled, beamed, put his hand up over his face to try to contain it a little. Arthur smirked and tutted and edged his own chair towards Merlin's. "You thought I wouldn't?"

"Wasn't sure. It was just a daydream."

"Could we, if we lived in Ealdor?"

"Don't think so, not that I've heard of. Here?"

"Maybe. Probably not. Maybe a slightly better chance if you had more status than a servant."

Merlin's eyes slid sideways, away from the speculative look Arthur was giving him. "You didn't finish your breakfast," Merlin said.

"Don't change the subject."

"If you try to make me some kind of joke knight, or saddle me with _land_ somehow, there are going to be consequences you won't like."

Arthur gave him the You Ruin All My Fun face.

"I haven't earned anything more from Camelot's court than what they've given me, and that is plenty, believe me."

"But—"

"What I do for you is for _you_. Not for them."

"Well, they should take my word for it!"

"Arthur..."

"Fine. When it's safe," Arthur started, and paused to sigh at Merlin's unhappy face. "When it is _safe_, you'll have everything you've truly earned. From me and from this kingdom. That's my final word on the matter."

"And be what?" Merlin's lips twitched. "Your jester?"

"No, that wouldn't work at all. A jester should only play the fool, and you're one all the time. You'll have to keep on making me laugh for free."

"What, then?"

"You'll be my advisor, obviously."

Merlin's eyebrows actually disappeared up under his hair, which had got a bit long and unruly lately. "Thought you just said I'm a fool all the time?"

"You have something I need," Arthur told him. "I've known that for a long time, almost since the beginning." He decided that he would say such things more often if it would crumble Merlin's doubt and make him glow like that; it didn't cost so much. "Until then... shall we have an illicit relationship?"

"Isn't that what we've been doing?"

Arthur nodded cheerfully. "Great, isn't it?"

"Mostly," Merlin said with a half-smile. "Not that we have much choice either way," he added, and Arthur hit his absolute limit of seeing Merlin subdued and discontent.

"If you were to say," Arthur said as he shifted from his own chair to sit on the arm of Merlin's, leaning down to speak into his ear, "that you want to dance with me at feasts, I'll do it. I'll ask you to dance in front of everyone, I'll drag you out on the floor if I have to. Most of them'll think it's a farce but I'll mean it, I'll dance with you and touch you there in front of the whole court, don't think that I wouldn't."

Over the course of this, Merlin was shading slowly pinker. "_No_. Don't."

"All right, then, if you're _sure_."

"I... I don't know."

"Just say the word." Arthur let himself slide a bit into Merlin's lap, which to his disappointment didn't evoke much more than an exasperated wheeze.

"Get off, you know these aren't big enough to hold two people."

"Maybe you'll think twice, then, next time you decide you want to fuck me in my chair." Arthur relaxed more fully onto Merlin's lap, amused with himself.

"What am I supposed to be taking away from this conversation?" Merlin complained. "Go on! Your heavy arse is making my legs numb."

"You always were a romantic, weren't you, Merlin?"

"That's rich coming from you." Merlin head-butted him in the ribs. "Off, or I'll make you."

"Then make me." Merlin did the paranoid back-and-forth glance that had become habitual in recent years, then didn't so much as utter a word before Arthur found himself sprawled on his back on his bed without even the feeling of having been moved. He laughed up at the canopy. "Something on your mind?"

Merlin crossed the room the more mundane way and climbed onto the bed to lie propped up on his elbows alongside. He said nothing, but glanced at Arthur's closed hand, the one still clutching his token.

"What do we do with these?" Arthur held his half-coin up over his head, turning it over, thumbing the uneven broken edge. "Just carry them?"

"I guess. You could put yours back in your collection. I'd still know you had it."

"What are you going to do with yours? You'll lose it if you keep it in your pocket."

"I'll figure something out."

Arthur was inspecting Merlin's profile as Merlin yawned, and considering having some kind of carrying pouch made for Merlin's belt — and while he was thinking of it, Merlin could use a new belt as well — when a feeling he didn't know what to do with caught up with him, sort of scary even as it offered safety he had never expected to have for himself: a feeling of enormity, of changing his own life, and certainty that, for him, there was no other answer that could have sown as much happiness. His breath caught.

"Arthur?"

He dragged Merlin closer and kissed him a bit wildly, and Merlin smiled against his mouth before pinning Arthur to the bed and kissing back, something strong and sustaining in the contact. "You're mine," Arthur said with great conviction.

Merlin laughed at him outright. "You... Okay, that is _not_ news."


End file.
